Santa Cruzin, Part 2

As promised, pics from my Santa Cruz camping trip and it only took me a week to get them up this time... yay for me ;)


We camped at Sunset State Beach just a few miles south of Santa Cruz and had a lovely woodland campsite bordering grassy, ice plant and shrub-covered dunes which separated the campground from the beach.

I took LOTS of pictures. Even this cluttered mess in the Duck somehow looked lovely to me in the morning sun.

We made the trip with my sister-in-law Zoë and her family again, us in the Duck and them in their cute little teardrop trailer. I guess this probably makes them our official camping buddies.


It’s awesome traveling with them because Clover loves having her older cousins around to play with and they, being avid campers, really have the whole routine down.

Not only did Zoë make our campsite nice and homey with floral oilcloth for the picnic table and fresh roses from her yard, she also cooked ALL of our campsite meals for us and we’re talkin delicious stuff like fried potatoes and yummy cheese-y bacon-y eggs for breakfast!

Surrounding the campground were seemingly endless fields of strawberries...

That combined with the fact that I had just seen Across the Universe the day before we left, resulted in this song playing non-stop in my head throughout the weekend.

As far as songs-to-get-stuck-in-your-head go, I’d say I got pretty lucky and it actually just added a bit of a dreamy quality to the whole experience.


My niece and nephew zoning out on the campfire, over which we later made s'mores with roasted coconut covered marshmallows and chocolate graham crackers, mmmm. There were plenty of good trees for Vida, our resident tree climber, to enjoy as well :)

The best thing about our campsite was that we had a trail that went directly from our site straight up the dunes to a magnificent lookout point, perfect for surf checking and sunset viewing.

Since I was the one taking all the pictures, this is one of the few that I was actually in. I know the yoga pants under the dress are not very stylish but what can I say, it got cold, I was camping.

I do also realize that I have my daughter wearing an article of clothing straight from my own list of Nevers *gasp* but I’d like to state that for the record, crocs can actually be kind of cute if they are pink and your feet are less than four inches long ;)




I think it’s safe to say that Clover has finally outgrown her dislike of the sand! I’m pretty sure the elaborate sand maze that Lucas and her cousins dug for her (as I lounged about) may have had something to do with it ;)

I totally broke down and got her sand toys and this little rash guard/shorts ensemble at Target before the trip. I know, not very thrifty of me, but look at her! How could I resist?!

I took everyone to the little natural history museum that I had fallen in love with on my previous trip. I was excited to see that they had a completely new exhibit, which was right up my alley, with cool scientific illustrations and curiosity cabinet type vignettes on display.







Can you spot me in the reflection on the right? (hint: that’s my shoulder in Darwin’s beard) and I love the reflection of Vida holding Clover on the left :)

Not a very thrift related post, I know, but we did actually head downtown for some thrifting after leaving the museum. The only item I ended up with though was a vintage children’s book.

Zoë had better luck and left with a bag full of stuff, though the luck ran out when her van with her thrift finds and my book still in it, was stolen (!!!) a few days after returning home. A bummer thing to have happen after such an awesome trip, but I think they’re already getting excited about the idea of getting a new car, so I guess there’s that!

If you’re still reading… hey, thanks for sitting through all my travel pics!